THE SPEED OF FUNGUSA couple years ago I excerpted a stack of optimal oak branches from some fresh firewood oak trees I'd been given, and set them aside out in the garden under the chestnut tree to await the annual late-autumn sale of
shiitake spore. Then at spore time I went to the farm store where, in addition to the old standard shiitake spore, they were selling spore for a new shiitake I’d never heard of, called JUMBO shiitake. The photos looked impressive so I decided to give it a try; anyway I already had a lot of logs producing the regular old-fashioned conventional standard traditional run-of-the-mill shiitake.
By the time I got started, I had so many logs waiting under the chestnut tree it took me a while to get them all done, plus the weather was on-and-offy, plus the old drill finally gave out after years of struggling against sheer oak and
I had to get a new drill, then the spore-plug-sized drill bit broke and I had to go find another one right in the middle of shiitake log-drilling-bit-demand season, each delay extending the task (ideally, fresh cut logs should be inoculated asap, or at most within 6 weeks), with the logs waiting on the ground, until I finally wrapped up the JUMBO inoculation quite a bit over schedule.
Leaving the logs on the ground like that, like any old common fallen-in-the-forest logs, was not a good idea - indeed in some mushroom quarters it could be construed as log abuse - but I didn't know that at the time. In the next couple of years I learned, though, as I watched various fungal growths emerge from my now sullied logs, which had been rampantly violated as they lay there on the ground like common forest wantons. Despite the impressive display of fungal diversity, though, there were no signs of JUMBO shiitake-- not even
jumbo shiitake. I began to think that all my mushroom ambitions had been crowded out by these fungal heathens that of course have their proper place in nature, which is anywhere distant from the elite society of my select logs. I’m beginning to sound like the bad guy in a Capra movie.
It was in fact an impressive display the fungal world put on using my logs, all at the speed of fungus, for my painful education: wild species of all descriptions I had not seen or noted before, that apparently were always lying in wait for some innocent logs to come along so they could indulge in their fungal depredations, were now partying big time on my compromised logs. There were shelvy fungi and droopy fungi, hard liquescent ones and rubbery ones, even hairy ones, some of them probably glowed in the dark too, even sang to each other in the evening, But Not for Me… like in that old standard ballad that probably had to do with something other than fungus, but you get the drift of my mushrooming despair... Yes, not only would there be no JUMBO mushrooms for yours truly, there would be less than none, given the rabid profusion of undesired species; what's more, it would take at least three years for me to find out for sure!
Thus it was on that early morning that I passed by without even wanting to look at the mongrel shiitake logs on my way to the compost heap - not that I was going to jump in or anything - things weren't that bad, I was just going to toss on some kitchen garbage - and I bumped into something at knee height that felt like the edge of a sofa. I looked down and saw that it wasn’t a sofa, it was a mushroom!
Altogether there were about 8 sofa edges in this first emergence. Apparently these babies, unlike their conventional relatives, are not much affected by mere intrusions of feral spore. Even only 8 of them was too much for us. We gave a couple to some big-eating neighbors. I sliced a small one thin, as per
one of my shroom recipes, and had it for a large lunch. Great flavor, pleasantly
al dente as compared to the standard shiitake, plus they're HUGE. Just picture the edge of a sofa. They were gone before I could get any photos, but next time...
So to get to my point, when I recently got some good Jumbo shiitake logs from my clearing work with Mr. H., while I'm waiting for the spore to get marketed I've stacked the logs carefully on the dry stone floor under the porch roof, off the ground and out of the rain.
Not that I've got anything against the wild side...
"This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet the petroleum energy Humble supplies -- if converted into heat -- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second!"
"When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of the parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."
Americans, who lack general experience in bowing and curtsying, unlike folks who are subject to kings, emperors and whatnot, have a sort of ingrained antipathy toward self-humbling actions. Americans traditionally prefer the straightforward manly handshake, the ancient way of showing that one held no weapons, basically an expression of mutual distrust.
And that unexpectedly - as if anyone ever expected to see even a happy mushroom - but so it was. I hadn't been thinking of mushrooms at all, which is my normal state of mind, generally. I can go many days without thinking of mushrooms.
Then this afternoon I was just back from bucking some oak trees up mountain and was putting the chainsaw away, my lunch hunger growing by the minute, when I noticed an alien object atop the firewood stack nearest the tool shed. What could be forming that weird shape - in sort of an ET color - I went closer and saw that it was the biggest shiitake I have ever seen - though I expect there may be bigger ones down the line.
human, until I was the first to behold its magnificence. I ran off at once to get my camera to photograph this monster, since I had spazzed out on my previous Jumbo photo-op (as also indicated in said post), and as I was about to snap the photo I realized I had to put some object in there for scale, 'cause this thing was just too big, so I put in a cigarette lighter that I always carry for burning tree trimmings etc., but a bright red plastic cigarette lighter just seemed inappropriate, not to say garish and profane in the august presence of this Caesar of funguses, so I took off my glasses and put them on top of it, took the photograph and saw that the mushroom was quite handsome with my glasses on, they seemed to fit that noble countenance - in fact the mushroom seemed to be quite smiley now that he could see clearly.
Life can turn an interesting corner when you least expect it. This morning I was getting dressed as usual when, for some reason only the deep mind could relate, from out of nowhere I began singing the old song "School Days," then at some point realized what I was singing - it was so chronically (to say nothing of locationally) out of place - and recalled during WWII, while my father was in the army in Europe, when my mother and I in our little apartment (me on the couch) sang ourselves to sleep at night by singing "School Days" together, and in those days (I was about 3 or 4) I just mimed the words. That was the only time I ever heard it, and where I learned it.
o there I was back at home this evening following a longlabor afternoon of sectioning oak logs (ones I'd felled on Wednesday with H-san), to get branches and upper trunk segments of the right size for my next batch of shiitake logs, the rest to go for firewood. Got home worn out, unloaded the shiitake logs from the car and stacked them on the stones of the porch, not on the ground, so they don't get alienly inoculated by wild soil spores while I wait for the jumbo shiitake spore to come on the seasonal market.
Yesterday after some early morning gardening, while I was busy editing the doorbell rang; it was Mr. H. from Uji, who has some land upmountain. He had stopped by to ask if I wanted any rice straw. He was taking a whole truckful from his home paddy up to use on his garden, and had more straw than he needed, so he stopped by.
I love it when, like last night after a long day in the office, on the train home I'm sitting among all the staid salarymen of mostly older years who live outside the city, and after listening to an elderhoodly interesting podcast on history or science I suddenly have a craving for some mindscouring tunerush so I dive into for example the Pixies' Surfer Rosa, one of my dozens of top 10 albums ever, with Bone Machine for starters, get down, and Where Is My Mind not long after, whoa, I crank it UP, let's wail, and all at once the nearer heads turn to see what that odd new tiny pounding and screaming noise is, and wonder why those little drumsounds and microriffs are squealing out of my silverhaired head as factoids of puzzlement begin crawling all over their faces: what is this casually dressed, ponytailed elder with two gold earrings listening to?
"Despite the film’s enthusiastic reception at the festival — a round of applause broke out at the end of the film — it is unclear whether it will spark a wider public debate. Whale and dolphin hunting is considered an important part of Japan’s traditional livelihood and culinary culture, a practice to be defended against foreign interference — even though only a minority of Japanese eat whale meat, and even fewer eat dolphin.
Today after lunch I came back to the office carrying a suspicious-looking bag with odd bulges in it that contained, if you must know, pairs of big red lips, big red-tipped noses, round red clown noses and a few masks.
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